Malaysia's IAPLC achievement has been fairly consistent in the last 10 years, except for one big drop in 2016, most other years they have the average ranking of between 20-70. Although they took the IAPLC individual Grand Champion as recent as 2017, but as a nation, they are arguably stronger in the earlier years of 2009-2012. This country has good individual scapers, but not enough players to form a good team (yet), especially after some of their top scapers "retired" from competitive aquascaping few years ago, Malaysia is currently entering a transition stage - where the younger scapers are being groom to anchor the country - which will take time.
Malaysia's main aquascaping style used to be forest. It is not hard to noticed that all top layouts coming from the Malaysian are forest style in the past, perhaps for the same reasons as their neighbour Indonesia: abundant of driftwood resources and being surrounded by natural greeneries. However, in recent years, there is a shift in the aquascaping style from Malaysia. Few of their top scapers are changing their style and move towards the new breed of NA - not traditional NA but a fusion between NA and some modern concept. Due to this change, it affects the newer members from this country as more are attempting NA rather than the traditional forest. This is a bold move by their leaders for challenging something out of their comfort zones and leaving behind something that they are good at!
Aquascaping in Malaysia, is mainly powered by their aquascaping group: Little Green Corner, a small group formed by the top scapers in Malaysia and later on extended to Singapore. In the last 10 years, members from Little Green Corner contributed nearly 70% of the top 5 layouts from Malaysia every year! This is a pure competitive aquascaping group which is "infamously" known in the country for having very strict rules, extremely high standard and harsh leaders , only pure aquascapers that has the ambition of competing in international competition are accepted as member. as a result, new scapers that are not up to the challenge, are dropping out of the group like flies. But Quality over Quantity will always be observed in this group. Currently, they only have 15 scapers as their core members, a very selective membership from more than 600 applications.
Strength and weaknesses
The main strength in Malaysia as the challenger in IAPLC Nations Challenge, is Little Green Corner. This is a tight group where the top scapers will coach and mentor their core members, whatever it takes, to perform well in competitive aquascaping. From the initial concept, hardscape arrangement, planting, maintenance, until photo shooting and editing, as long as you can survive the "harsh" environment in the group , you will be extended with all the support you need. Aquascaping in Malaysia will not achieve today's standard if not for the persistence of the leaders from this group.
As for the weaknesses, Malaysia has the same issue like HongKong and Singapore, they are too reliance on their top scapers without much support from the rest of the team. There are still some sizable gaps between the veteran scapers and the new comers.
The aquascaping culture in Malaysia is not entirely healthy too: too much focus on commercial activities without really pushing for the organic development of this hobby. Many "aquascapers" are contented just being a good farmer and the 'admirers' around them are giving them so much compliments for just being able to grow healthy plants and this false sense of feel-good factor has hindered the overall development of aquascaping in Malaysia. As the saying goes...there are too many "masters" in this country, everybody can become a master as long as the mosses are green.
In order to challenge the top honours as a nation, Malaysia needs to cut this feel-good farmer mentality and be a real aquascaper.
Author: IAPLC Nations Challenge
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